Virginia Postrel Quotes

Young people have got to start their own theaters, really. All good theater is a kind of mom-and-pop operation. Start your own theater.

The thing with making your art your business is: It's a business. You can't sit around waiting for the muse, especially when you run a show, and you're in production, and an outline is due, a script is due, and a reshoot is due. No. You look at the calendar, and you go, 'OK. I can write from 4 to 6.' So you write.

The best restriction I learned was getting into the habit of doing something, even if I didn't feel like it, instead of running away from it. Sometimes good work needs to be earned, and when you can overcome yourself, the muse notices and celebrates.

The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.

The world of extreme sports is also one of big business. Kids might think that snowboarding is the ultimate freedom, but this freedom is being marketed to them by commercial sponsors.

In this I-me society, my job is to get people to buy into something bigger than themselves.

When the youth of America gets together, amazing things happen.

I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

If I give myself a chore, for instance, when I was writing the songs for Shameless, I said to myself, Now, every day for 90 days you have to write a song; good, bad or indifferent. So that was really helpful.

I have a certain temperament, a disposition that I think lends itself to not playing outside the lines that much. But I do test the boundaries, certainly, and break one or two of my own. Some people are mystified by it, but not me.

I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

They're always saying I'm a capitalistic pig. I suppose I am. But... it's good for my drumming.

The history of business has shown that companies usually only regulate themselves if they're forced to by legislation, or out of self-interest - often in the shape of a marketable message that will help sell more products.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

I fell in love with commerce and the opportunities that come with compelling visual storytelling.

I think that my peers deserve more than products to buy wrapped up in advertising. We need ideas to share and causes to believe in - opportunities to lead and teach.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.

I never went to college. But the structure I grew up with was planted so deep that when it came to doing business, I knew how to be disciplined, create teamwork, and persevere. It set me up to be an entrepreneur and a successful franchiser.

There are always protests, whether you do something good or bad. Even if you do something beneficial, people say you do it because it's advertising.

My individual power is limited. I want to use my high-profile way to wake people up to take action together to do good things. I can only awake them with my performance art and creativity.

I write on a very strict 2-hour-a-day schedule, and I really respond to structure and invented rules. So even if I'm finding out good information on a character, I will stop when I'm set to stop.

We had all this kind of freedom and 'get out of your head' kind of stuff and at the same time, we were trying to establish ourselves in the business. These two things are really difficult to bring together.